“Um,” said a reader after the ‘don’t should’ column, “How do I know when to make a change and when to go easy on myself — how do I know when to apply which principle?”

It’s a great point, and I’m grateful to be called out on it. It’s all well and good to say we should live in the now and accept God’s plan as it unfolds, but that doesn’t mean we should be passive. Using the metaphor of the stream of life, there are times to watch the water flow by, and there are times to row the boat. We have to decide which is called for, and the right answer will vary depending on the situation.

A lot of the religious guidance out there is in the form of directions — do this, don’t do that — and there’s a place for structure — the banks of the river, to continue the metaphor. But, as then-Cardinal Ratzinger has said:

“[People] have the impression that the Church’s real function is only to condemn and to restrict life. Perhaps too much has been said and too often in this direction — and without the necessary connection of truth and love.”

Discernment Tools

Prayer — Bring your decisions to God; let go of the idea that you have to fix this on your own.

Meditation — Learn through regular meditation how to be quiet enough to hear the Truth within you, and how to be more accepting and trusting of the way things are around you.

Spiritual reading — There’s an overabundance of amazing spiritual reading to help us in our discernment. These suggestions just scratch the surface:

Daily Scripture readings: Follow the daily readings of the Church with your Bible, online with the USCCB website or on an iPhone with Cantcha’s iMissal. Some sources, such as Magnificat, add commentary on the readings. (Or, of course, you can go to Daily Mass.)

Topic-based Scripture guides: Use a guide that suggests passages based on your concern. An absolutely wonderful aid is God, I Have Issues by Mark E. Thibodeaux, S.J.; for each topic it has a Scripture passage, commentary, pithy quotes, prayer pointers, and then a bunch of additional suggested Scripture readings.

Topic-based spiritual books: Whatever issue you’re struggling with, there are bound to be dozens of spiritual books about it. But don’t do endless research while avoiding listening to your heart.

Books about the discernment process: My personal favorite book on discernment is Wise Choices by Margaret Silf. Other exceptional choices are God of Surprises by Gerard W. Hughes, and Making Choices in Christ by Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J.

Inspiring classics:; Some classics are well suited for reading in short sessions. A few of the countless options are: St. Augustine’s Confessions; The Imitation of Christ; The Cloud of Unknowing; The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox; The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila; and two new classics, The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris; and Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI.

Regular spiritual practice — As with daily Scripture reading, simply going to Mass and otherwise participating in the life of your spiritual community, you will hear things that relate to whatever you are struggling with.

A spiritual director — I can’t emphasize enough the underused resource of spiritual direction, in which you meet regularly with a spiritual director to discuss your spiritual journey and challenges. To find a spiritual director, start first with friends that see one; word of mouth is always best. If not, your own church may offer it, or try a nearby church, abbey, retreat center or seminary, the listings of Spiritual Directors International, or private ads in local spiritual publications. (While the tradition of spiritual direction began in the Catholic Church, there are many practitioners of other faiths or who identify as interfaith.)

We tend to row a lot when it isn’t helpful, chasing after the illusion of control over our destiny, our security and safety — things that are really in God’s hands — by controlling our actions. That’s why there is so much spiritual guidance focused on helping people learn to live in the now — to go with the flow (to keep on beating this metaphor into the ground.)

Take the right actions and let go of the results

One of the greatest spiritual axioms, which neatly combines these principles, is: "Take the right actions and let go of the results." Use discernment to choose the right actions (or no action), follow through, and then — and this is the key to serenity — accept whatever comes next.

How do we accept whatever comes? Trust — trust in God and trust in ourselves.

To trust ourselves means to trust our discernment process and our follow-through. That’s hard enough. But we also must trust God and Creation — that things are as they’re meant to be, and that if we operate out of love, things will work out. With those two things in place, we can let go; without them, we live in anxiety.

Take this relatively trivial example: There’s a monthly get-together of a group of friends from my teens. I enjoy it but it’s a lot of social interaction jammed into a small amount of space and time. Last week, I wasn’t in the mood, and decided to skip it. Was I being lazy? Would I regret missing it? — my choice nagged at me. I didn’t entirely trust myself, my motives, so there was anxiety. But I knew I’d made a reasonable choice, which helped me embrace the result.

How to decide

So, when you are facing any fork in the road — big or small — how do you discern the next right action in a trustworthy way? A way that, if you later doubt it, you can remind yourself was reasonable. There are many answers to this question, and different approaches are best in different cases. In the sidebar on the right, I suggest some tools to help in the discernment process.

One common feature is an ancient piece of spiritual wisdom: You already know the right answer. What is best is to be in alignment with God and the Universe. Knowledge of what this entails — or to put it another way, knowledge of what is Truth — is innate. Cynthia Bourgeault, in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, calls this our “magnetic center”:

“It is indeed your interior compass, the needle of your heart pointing to the magnetic north of God. When the inner alignment is strong and steady, you find that you are able to follow the course of your own authentic unfolding with a kind of effortless grace.”

So, discernment is not a decision-making process but an answer-uncovering process. Much of the research and tortuous mulling we do is, as Malcolm Gladwell said in Blink, not to find the answer but to reassure ourselves that the choice we’ve already made is right.

Why is it so hard to have confidence in how our heart leads us? Often, it is because we think our heart has led us astray over and over. There was a time when I felt very misled by my heart. I was spiritually adrift and facing the wreckage of a marriage and career, and I wrote, "I’ve been wrong so many times, I don’t trust myself anymore." Melodramatic, I know — I roll my eyes when I read that now — but people are not being unreasonable when they feel this way. It’s based on experience. What I didn’t realize then was that it wasn’t my heart I’d been listening to, it was fear — the opposite of conscious contact with God.

Love, and do what you will

Saint Augustine famously said, “Love, and do what you will.” His point is that you can trust that your actions will be right if they are grounded in God’s Love. You don’t need to carefully follow thousands of memorized rules or torture yourself with analysis.

On the other hand, when we make fearful, selfish and self-seeking decisions, thinking we are taking care of ourselves (or full of pride that we are such awesome generous people,) we set up chain reactions that eventually bring everything tumbling down. Then we think we can’t trust our instincts.

But we never followed our instincts.

One of the main things that spiritual direction and other tools of spiritual discernment can do is give you the willingness and framework to trust in God, accept things as they are, and then, in that place of safety, uncover what you already know. As Thomas Merton said, “Spiritual direction is, in reality, nothing more than a way of leading us to see and obey the real Director — the Holy Spirit hidden in the depths of our soul.”

So if you have a choice in front of you, don’t be hasty and try to will yourself through it. And don’t distract yourself constantly with activity. Slow down. Give the issue the space and time it needs. Seek the counsel of a spiritual director, read Scripture and other spiritual books, pray and meditate, be still and listen for God’s guidance. It’s already within you. Then, grounded in love and truth, take action and embrace the future.

The Author : Phil Fox RosePhil Fox Rose is content manager of Busted Halo. He's a writer, editor and content lead based in New York and writes the On the Way blog at patheos.com. He is coordinator for the New York City chapter of Contemplative Outreach, helping promote centering prayer, which has been his contemplative practice for nearly 20 years. Phil has also been a political party leader, videographer, tech journalist, punk roadie, software designer, sheepherder, stockbroker and downtempo radio DJ. A common thread is the process of learning about stuff, figuring it out and then sharing that understanding with others. Follow Phil on Facebook here. Or on Twitter here. philfoxrose.com.
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Please note that the editorial staff reserves the right to not post comments it deems to be inappropriate and/or malicious in nature, as well as edit comments for length, clarity and fairness.

Crystal

oh discernment. oh so good! discernment is quite the process, and i think it’s important to mention that discernment never ends either! i have found that the decision that is made, is just as important as the entire process going through it! i really liked how Thomas Merton was referenced in this article with one of his quotes on spiritual direction. Another powerful prayer that i always turn to is the Merton prayer that begins with, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going…” (look it up!). have the desire, discern, and decide…it’s all good :)

mairie gelling

When I was doing my spiritual direction course we did work on this and of course all your advice is quite correct – but you still end up questioning the what if? Then a religious sister gave me this advice – you will almost certainly end up with three options – the first will be the Holy Spirit’s which will contain mystery and perhaps make no sense, the second is yours – trying to make sense of what the Holy Spirit is saying (and so watering it down) and the third is from the other end of the playing field and probably makes the most sense and is therefore most to be ignored. And, do you know – she has always been right.

Darrin @ SuccessfulCatholic.com

AWESOME article! Very timely for me – as I’m sure it is for everyone at ANY time. After all, when are we NOT trying to make big life-changing decisions? :)

cathyf

Something I use as a touchstone throughout the day is from the introduction to the Spiritual Exercises: “I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God’s life in me.”

carmela

Excellent article!I am glad you brought in the Holy Spirit who is key to everything.The beauty of our journey though hard is the element of living in the mystery. We never really know for certain but plugging along as best we can through prayer and reliance on God’s graces we muddle through beautifully eventually.